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Bob Denver
| birth_place = New Rochelle, New York | death_date = | death_place = Winston Salem, North Carolina | website = Official website | known_for = Gilligan's Island | series = I Dream of Jeannie | character = Harold, Jeannie's cousin | episodes = "My Son, the Genie" (Season 3) }} Bob Denver (9 January 1935 - 2 September 2005) was an American comedic actor known for his roles as Gilligan on the CBS series Gilligan's Island and the beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on the 1959–1963 TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Bob made a guest appearance as Harold, Jeannie's bumbling genie-in-training cousin, whom she is dispatched by Haji, his father, to try to train in the episode "My Son, the Genie" in Season 3. Life and Career Bob was a physical education instructor and a mathematics and history teacher at Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic elementary school in Pacific Palisades, California, when he shot the pilot for the TV series, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1958. After the series was picked up, he left his teaching career and began a long acting career on television. From 1959 to 1963, Denver played Maynard G. Krebs, the teenaged beatnik best friend of Dobie Gillis, played by Dwayne Hickman on Dobie Gillis. While he was working on the show, Denver also appeared on the NBC interview program, Here's Hollywood. Denver's first feature film appearance was in the service farce, A Private's Affair, with Sal Mineo in 1959. He landed a small role in the 1963 Jimmy Stewart film, Take Her, She's Mine as a beatnik poet working at a coffee shop, where he was credited as Robert Denver. Denver also appeared in the 1964 beach film For Those Who Think Young with Tina Louise prior to the development of Gilligan's Island. Bob also had a one-time role replacing the actor who played Dudley A. "Dud" Wash, the husband of Charlene Darling of The Darlings, on The Andy Griffith Show, which aired 30 March 1964. This was done by the network to promote Denver's face and make him more familiar to the viewing audience, since Gilligan's Island was about to go on air. Bob is remembered primarily as a comic actor. However, he also appeared in one dramatic role on television, as a physician a physician named Dr. Paul Garrett in one episode of the CBS series Dr. Kildare, which also featured Barbara Eden and Ken Berry, two other prominent Sixties actors who went on to successful TV careers. After Dobie Gillis ended in 1963, Denver landed the title role on the sitcom Gilligan's Island, which ran for three seasons from 1964 to 1967, and became a staple of later syndication. His role as the well-meaning but bumbling first mate among a small cast of shipwrecked castaways became the one for which he is most remembered. During the run, Denver privately went out of his way to help his costars who warmly appreciated his efforts, such as successfully demanding that Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells be included in the series' opening credits and insisting that Wells get an equal share of the show's publicity with Tina Louise. Later Career After the conclusion of Gilligan's Island, Denver appeared in the 1967 comedy film Who's Minding the Mint?, going on to other TV shows, such as The Good Guys, Love, American Style and Dusty's Trail, a facsimile of Gilligan's Island with the basis of a lost wagon train. He also starred as "Junior" in the Sid & Marty Kroft children's program Far Out Space Nuts, and the movie, The Wackiest Wagon Train in the West, a feature movie created from several episodes of Dusty's Trail A decade after CBS left the castaways in limbo, he returned to the role of Gilligan and reunited with many of his former co-star castaways in the animated The New Adventures of Gilligan and its sequel, Gilligan's Planet, as well as the live-action made-for-TV reunion movies Rescue from Gilligan's Island and The Castaways on Gilligan's Island, which was going to set the pilot for a new series. After The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, he also played four separate guest roles on Fantasy Island between 1978 to 1980. In 1983, he starred in another television pilot, The Invisible Woman, as the bumbling mad scientist uncle of the title character, a journalist played by actress Alexa Hamilton. He also appeared in the TV movie, High School U.S.A. Radio Work Late in the final years of his life, Denver returned to his adopted home of Princeton, WV, and became an FM radio personality. He and his wife, Dreama, ran a small "oldies format" radio station, WGAG-LP 93.1 FM while he earned a small income making public appearances, often costumed as Gilligan. During the 1980s, he re-created the character of Gilligan for numerous cameo appearances, including episodes of ALF|ALF, Meego and Baywatch, as well as a bartender in the 1987 film, Back to the Beach. In 1992, he again played Gilligan to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation for a West Virginia fundraiser for the organization. He also appeared in the NBC docudrama Surviving Gilligan's Island, which co-starred his Dobie Gillis co-star, Dwayne Hickman, as a network executive. Death Denver died 2 September 2005 at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina of complications from treatment he was receiving for cancer. However, reports of his death once again began trending on Twitter" and "Facebook" in September 2012, even though it had happened seven years earlier. Category:Actors Category:Guest stars Category:Real People Category:I Dream of Jeannie